


Songstress-ing Doubt

by Signel_chan



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Gen, Post-Canon, friends (or maybe more than friends?)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-30
Updated: 2020-04-30
Packaged: 2021-03-01 20:20:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,317
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23932951
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Signel_chan/pseuds/Signel_chan
Summary: But she is not really a songstress, and yet he wants her show to go on.(And Sylvain? Well, he thinks something else entirely happened.)
Kudos: 9





	Songstress-ing Doubt

The curtains opened up on the stage and the orchestra began to play their swelling music, but the performer for the night had not yet taken her place to start singing, causing confusion and concern amongst the members of the crowd. Noticing that there was no one they were playing to accompany, the conductor silenced the instruments after a few moments of whispers running rampant through the audience, and the curtains closed without any explanation as to what was going on. As far as anyone knew, the show was not to go on that night, and they’d all gathered in their finest clothes for no reason whatsoever.

Shaking his head in his seat, Sylvain turned to his neighbor to make a remark. “What a shame, she was going to be real—uh, where’d you go?” He was caught by surprise at how the seat next to him was empty, the man he’d come to show with having disappeared somewhere in the moment of confusion. Standing up and trying to look around the dimly-lit theater, he couldn’t make out anyone in specific so he couldn’t be sure if his friend was around or not, and just in case the show was going to restart without a hitch he sat back down.

Moments later, Felix was pushing back by to take his seat once more, hushing Sylvain with a hand motion when he saw that he was about to ask him what had happened. His face was flushed, hair more disorderly than normal, and one of the buttons on his shirt wasn’t quite straight, but he was back and that was all he was going to let his friend know. When the curtain came back open and the orchestra began once again, everything seemed like it was back in order, but when the star attraction came into view with her dress and hair both mussed, things seemed to click in Sylvain’s mind, and he couldn’t wait for a pause between songs before he could ask Felix about things.

Whatever he was assuming, he was dead wrong, and Felix knew that without needing to hear what kind of debauchery he was going to be accused of. The truth of the matter was that he _had_ been responsible for the delay in the show’s initial start, but it was only because he was doing something for the performer that no one else had been capable of. He’d been approached during her vocal warm-ups by one of the crew putting the show together, asking him to visit her in her dressing room to give her a pep talk before her performance. Initially he’d turned the request down, but after being approached a second time he gave in, knowing how near and dear to his heart Annette really was.

She had looked incredibly frantic when he’d gotten to her room, her outfit a mess from how she’d thrown herself to the ground in frustration at herself. “I’m not cut out for this kind of thing,” she sobbed, her face pushing into the floor. “I can’t get on the stage and sing songs like a professional! That’s what opera singers do, not people like me! I can’t do it!”

“I understand why I’m here now,” he muttered, before getting down on the floor next to her, his jacket clipping one of his shirt buttons and undoing it without him realizing it. “Annette, listen to yourself. Do you know why they selected you to do this performance, rather than calling on someone with actual stage training?”

“Because I’m cheap?” she replied, sniffling. “Oh, or is it because I’m going to make a fool out of myself and everyone’s going to pay extra to get to make fun of me when I’m done? I can’t believe you’re here to watch this all happen, Felix. I thought you supported me.”

He took in a deep breath, hesitating in moving his hand before going for stroking her hair anyway. “I do support you, hence why I’m here. I know the kind of talent you possess deep within you, and the people who arranged this show know of it as well. We all watched you win that contest at the tavern, this was not done with the intention of humiliating you.”

“Singing for everyone at the tavern was easy because I knew most of them!” Again she was crying, but much softer than before; his gentle touch must have been helping calm her worried mind down. “We’ve been going there so long that they all know me and I know most of them, they’re not a bunch of uppity strangers who are going to ruin my life when I mess up on stage!”

There was a knock at the door, followed by the voice of one of the people in charge telling them that she needed to get on stage for the show, which resulted in her crying harder once more. “She will be out when she gets out,” he snapped, knowing that sometimes his attitude could get the better of him and that instance was no exception. “Annette, please, you need to carry yourself with the pride of knowing that you were chosen to be here for a reason. You can sing, and you will sing. End of discussion.”

She lifted herself up off of the ground slightly, just enough that Felix could see that the front of her hair was smashed flat and her face was ruddy from the crying. “You’re getting rather forceful with me for someone who probably doesn’t even care that I’m going to be the laughingstock of Fhirdiad after tonight,” she told him, taking in a deep breath. “Why’d they go get you, out of everyone? I thought Ingrid and Mercie were here, they’d have been so much better at this ‘comforting’ thing than you.”

“No need to speak to me like that. I’m here because you know that I…enjoy your singing.” Felix froze up when he realized that he’d nearly told her that he _adored_ her singing, and that was something that he didn’t want weighing on her. “The people who put this show together, they knew when you broke down that I could support you. Doesn’t that tell you something about how I feel?”

“I guess it does, but it doesn’t change the fact that I’m going to make a fool out of myself out there, because I’m not as good as everyone thinks I am.”

He thought for a moment about how to get her to change her mind, but because using brute force wasn’t an option he went with the second-best plan. “Then show me what you’re going to do when you’re on stage. I’ll give you my honest opinion of it, right here.” That was enough to get her up off the floor, but she didn’t start singing until he prodded her further, and soon he was being treated to a private concert with a lovely voice, one that deserved the moment of attention it was getting that night. He’d made sure to tell her that she sounded wonderful, in terms that wouldn’t have seemed so jarring from him, and that was the confidence boost she needed to make it to her show.

The show that she’d already delayed by being a mess that doubted herself a bit too much.

But when Sylvain did get the chance to ask Felix about why he’d come back looking like he’d had a romp through a back-room of the auditorium, he stopped short of explaining the whole truth. “I was assisting Annette with overcoming her self-doubt, and received a private concert as thanks,” he ended up saying, leaving out all of the details about what, in specific, he had done to help her. “Then, because the show was delayed, I ran back in here and that would explain my appearance.”

“Uh…huh,” Sylvain replied, taking a long glance at the button in disarray. “Guess I’ll just ask Annette herself when this is all over what kind of place you chose for your moment. Didn’t know you had that much of a thing for her.”

Felix’s face was beginning to redden, a sharp contrast from the pale color it usually held, and he turned away from Sylvain’s judging eyes, fixing the button he’d thought he’d fixed already. “My feelings for Annette, while a personal matter that you have no reason for being involved in, are not relevant right here. She and I did nothing that we wouldn’t have done in front of others.”

“Ooh, into the public performances, I’m learning so much about you.” Sylvain chuckled, going silent when the music kicked up again, and for the next song Felix was struggling to contain his blind rage he felt at his so-called friend for those comments. He really _had_ been helping Annette get over her worries about her performance, but because of the specifics of the situation it did seem like they’d been up to other things, and there wasn’t much he could do to defend their honor.

Up on the stage, Annette was replaying Felix’s kind words in her mind every time she took a breath, trying to keep herself sane and steady while so far out of her comfort zone. The audience looked like a sea of faces that she wasn’t supposed to be able to make sense of, and all she could hear were her thoughts, her voice, and the orchestra she was performing alongside, so if anyone was cheering for her she wasn’t listening to it. There were some people she kept trying to find in the crowd, namely her friends that she knew were somewhere out there, but there wasn’t a single one that she could see, until she noticed the red hair that she knew belonged to Sylvain, and knowing that Felix had to be somewhere nearby she focused in on that area until she could see him clearly.

The heart-skipping feeling she felt was not one of romance but of pride, knowing that she was doing what he’d told her she was capable of, but because he was one person in a large crowd and her attention was clearly on him, Felix wasn’t sure how he was supposed to take her gaze from the stage. It earned him another round of badgering from Sylvain, and almost made him decide to miss out on the rest of the show, but if Annette was using him as her way of getting through the difficult part of performing, then it would have been wrong to deny her what she wanted.

There were no boos or criticisms when the singing finally ended and the bows were taken by the conductor and the voice of the night alike. She’d done what everyone knew she could, thanks to the help of a dear friend, and now she needed to thank him for his help. At the same time, Felix needed to talk to her about how she’d taken his advice and what it meant for how she felt towards him, if only to get Sylvain off of his back about things. They were able to meet after the show, and her initial reaction to seeing him so accessible was to charge at him and wrap her arms around him in a big hug, the strength in her grasp reasonable for someone so small who’d been so skilled with heavy weapons in the past.

“Thank you _so_ much for talking me through things!” she chirped, squeezing him tighter. “I would not have been able to do that without knowing you believed in me!”

“You would have been fine,” he assured her, glancing over at Sylvain and the smirk on his face as he watched the hug happen. “I was merely another voice telling you something you already knew to be true. Now will you let go of me? Someone already believes that you were late to your own show because you were taking part in…activities with me.”

“He’s only jealous that it was with you and not him,” she said without thinking about the consequences of making such a statement, and hearing Sylvain burst into laughter that caused him to double over made her let go of Felix at once and grab her face with her hands, mortified at what she’d just done. “No, I mean…we weren’t doing anything that we wouldn’t have done at the monastery! It was only words, I swear!”

“I think the damage there is done, Annette.” Seeing how hilarious Sylvain found things, Felix shook his head and grumbled something about kindness not paying enough, but when he looked to Annette and saw just how distraught she looked over being misinterpreted (even though she had directly played into things), he sighed and wrapped an arm around her shoulders. “Best we can do now is play this up, since it will be news everyone’s heard by tomorrow morning. Shall we make our next tavern outing a date?”

She sputtered, eyes turning to Felix wide and unsure of how to take the question. “I mean…haven’t all of our tavern outings been kinda like dates already?” she asked, making him realize that maybe, just maybe, things between them had always been more romantic than he’d thought. “I’ll definitely go on a real date with you, though, if none of our other dates have been actual dates!”

And so, months later when the organizers of the show put on a second one with the same up-and-coming performer, she didn’t need them to find a reassuring face in the crowd to motivate her, as he’d already been in her dressing room waiting for her in those last moments before showtime. He’d always known she could sing, and she’d always known that he loved her for it, but they’d both been slow to accept those two things as fact; once they knew them to be true, though, they were unstoppable.


End file.
